Greyscale
by Rrit
Summary: He arrived in gradients but Ginny remembers him best in steel grey.


A/N : (word) freedom, (color) steel grey, (word) desire. My prompt was for Beater 1 of the Ballycastle Bats. "Pawn: write about someone being manipulated"

* * *

He arrived in gradients but Ginny remembers him best in steel grey.

His fine shoes pointed out in washed out dark leather. His stance signified self assurance without the need to be ostentatious.

Perfect, she remembers. Perfect in all his flaws. The air beside him, the air Ginny breathed with the diary lovingly at her side was freedom. Escapism from annoying brothers, cute bespectacled boys, and mean girls. A mental shield from the looks and the few classist snickers.

(Ginny would later follow the general architecture of Tom Riddle's mental shields to create her own.)

Tom's slacks lined up just so with his sweater. Even at twelve, Ginny could _see_.

Pale hands peaked out of his Hogwarts robe . Even incorporeal, she felt his presence like heat on her back, warming her, heightening her awareness. His fine dark hair — colored grey but darker than his skin and slacks — fell neatly in curls.

Ginny wondered if she would be so fortunate to look so good when she died.

But what really stood out, what distincified transparent Tom from the stone wall Ginny could clearly see through him, was his eyes.

They locked into her, rooting her in place and thereby cementing his own being. She was more real than him, more substantial than him. Flesh and Bone. Ginny remembered that always, but often she had the distinct feeling that Tom was real in a different way.

Tom was not an illusion, a phantom, a figment.

He was more than light reflecting off air particles, he was the push and pull of the night, of magic itself.

He was not a Ghost.

He was not a Wizard.

He was not real.

He tells her things.

His hands are illusions.

His hands are cold.

The smile stretching across his face felt outdated like the joke he was laughing at was told in the last century. The stretching of his skin was pulled across the ages to stare up at her with dead —yet expressive — eyes.

He was grey but his teeth were white

Ginny never forgets that in her dreams. She never forgets him.

* * *

Ginny recalls in gradients.

She remembers walks and forests. She recalls the diary and adolescent woes. But most of all, her strongest, most vivid memories from first year are of him. She forgets her friends and even what bed she called her own.

Ginny doesn't like thinking about first year. It felt mostly like a blur, a very , patchy blur. Like a faulty video tape, the memories roll in excruciating slow-motion, rapid pace spinning, or nothing at all. Even about Tom, she possesses not even a quality scene or a full memory. She just sees him in snapshots, short three-second clips, like muggle thumbnail animation.

His Intangibility. The wind flattening verde grass but leaving him pale and untouched. she remembers Tom looking down and facing up. She can feel him try to grab her, reach out and touch her.

She has no context. Just light and shadows and grey. He felt like a cloud in wind. Appearing fluffy and warm bur rather possessing steely cold, deceiving.

It was before he left her, before he could walk her and speak into reality.

He gave her advice with a smooth, earnest voice. It made her hurt to hate him, even now when she knows he's wrong.

(but he was right, his advice sound)

"Well Ginera, you should ask Harry how he feels next time. Be brave."

"Why don't you check on Harry?"

"Do you want to see the Forbidden Forest? I know a shortcut."

She forgot when Tom-in-grayscale broke into color. She doesn't recall the red that hits her nose, the beautiful flush of his cheeks of the dark of her eyes. The movement of his hair and the white of his teeth.

But the greyscale, the paleness and the transparency. She remembers the otherness. The old joke for an old boy.

The quick smile when he feels unadulterated success — freedom — and Ginny is fading out. Eyesight darkening. White teeth, green tie. Death.

Much like Tom's betrayal and manipulations never leave her, the coldness of the chambers floor, the shadows and death remain too. She juggles Tom with "Ginny the Mum".

She carries them through the decades.

* * *

She remembers the feeling of color. The rush of red, slog of yellow and pink, swirling blue as he drained her. But it came in gradients.

He took her red when he took her blood.

He took her yellow and pink when she gave him her whims, her wishes, her desires.

Her blue was her freedom (but she had given him that too)

The loss that she felt - the welling sadness - that was the absence, the greyscale

Her betrayal, her anguish was momentarily overwritten with pity. That's what she remembers. The swing of his curls paired with his odd, old smile.

* * *

Harry came for her. Ron too.

(But Tom bled out in black, steely greyscale. Where was the color he stole?)

Ginny felt utterly empty. Rarely did Ginny linger upon the past, she got over things quick. Water under the bridge. But maybe she was young (and Tom memorable) but the _hurt_ and the white smile comes back at night and it circled around Ginny's head stepping out onto the fourth floor girl's bathroom.

Black, White, Green, Red.


End file.
